The present invention relates to blood pool imaging by nuclear medicine techniques.
Nuclear blood pool imaging, i.e., the imaging of radioactively labelled blood to allow visualization of a blood pool, is a well established diagnostic clinical tool. Common applications for blood pool imaging are the determination of heart function after myocardial infarction, and bleeding studies, i.e., the detection of occult bleeding sites, typically in the gastro-intestinal tract.
Blood pool imaging is performed by labelling red blood cells of a patient with a radioactive isotope, e.g., 99 mTc pertechnetate. Some blood labelling procedures require the removal of blood from the patient for in vitro labelling, after which the labelled blood is reintroduced to the patient. Accordingly, such procedures are relatively time-consuming, and carry with them risks inherent in blood handling, e.g., the transmission of infectious diseases by injecting the labelled blood into the wrong patient. Other imaging procedures involve labelling of red blood cells in vivo, but these procedures typically result in labelling efficiencies of less than 85%. In addition, all of these procedures require at least 20 to 30 minutes of preparation time per patient.